What’s Your Big Idea?

I write this as I fly to an annual meeting I organized initially 29 years ago, and first hosted in February of 1982, what is now known as the Conference on The First-Year Experience. This year more than a thousand higher educators will gather, in spite of this winter of all winters, and in spite of our terrible economy, to once again come together to learn from each other how to better help struggling first-year college students be successful. And since then we have organized these conferences in many cities and countries and more than 100,000 educators have participated. Now, the concept of “first-year experience” is ubiquitous in both the higher ed lexicon and practice. This is no longer a “big idea”, but it once was. And, it was my idea, one of my few original creations in life. What’s your big idea?This notion of “the big idea”: let me report how I came upon this. Almost a decade ago I met an outstanding foundation executive, as good as they come in the genre, Susan Conner, former Executive Vice President of Lumina Foundation for Education. Susan spoke often in my presence about the search for “the big idea” and she could and did constantly name people who had shown her “the big idea”. This made me think much more intentionally about “the big idea”. That was a real gift from her to me.Somebody else’s big ideas are all around us. Think of the roller bag I am hauling with me today out to Denver. Why didn’t I invent the roller bag? What a back saver? Or the bottled water that we all pay more for now than we do the same quantities of petroleum products, or alcohol! Who would have ever thought that in developed countries people would pay dearly for water?My big idea came in 1981. I had just been promoted to full professor at the University of South Carolina and now I had to decide what I was going to do for the rest of my life—i.e. now that I was fully professionally grown up. And I was trying to decide if I was going to continue to direct a first-year seminar, our fabled University 101 course. I decided that if that work were going to remain energizing of me I needed to think of some way to create professional development opportunities for me in this field. But there was no professional literature about this curricular innovation. And there were no conferences where I could learn from fellow educators new ideas to enrich this unique course genre. So I decided to organize a conference to teach myself. If I could learn, others could too. Then I followed that idea with one to create a national higher education center to provide “resources” to educators wanting to improve the beginning college experience. I was on a roll. And I don’t need to further enumerate my big ideas.My colleagues who know me best have always said: “If John can do it, anyone can.” And they are absolutely correct. So look around you. What’s your big idea for helping our students? What have you tried that no one else has and realized positive results for students and educators? There is no monopoly on good ideas. They don’t have to come from high status places and high status people. And there is huge demand for big ideas. Look at all the problems we struggle with in higher education and the broader society. Surely there is room for your big ideas too.-John Gardner

We maximized our efforts by linking FoE with the Higher Learning Commission's AQIP system for accreditation. Through this link, efforts related to the first year had instant cross-functional commitment and were viewed through a continuous improvement lens.— Ali O'Brien, Asst. Vice President for Educational Affairs - College of Lake County

Working with the Gardner Institute provided a structure to look at institutional effectiveness. This structure was more encouraging, and less threatening, than evaluative agencies and brought people together from across the campus, all committed to the same task - new student success.— Mark Lange, Former FoE Liason - Holyoke Community College

This has been an incredible (and quick) endeavor and an eye-opener in many ways. What is most rewarding to me, at the moment, is to have so much information in one place and accessible to so many people. This takes us way beyond anecdotal conversations. THANK YOU…for helping us get our data uploaded, assembled, reloaded, corrected, and available to our users.— Regina Shearer, Associate Vice President for Student Success, Rivier University

The FoE process was transformational for MCCC. It helped us bring all stakeholders together and have a dialogue that has brought real changes to our institution. As we journey on, we are now very mindful and intentional in thinking about student success.— Dr. Steady Moono, Vice President for Student Affairs - Montgomery County Community College

The John N. Gardner Institute is a group of people that have an extremely high level of expertise in education. They know education - they don’t just know the software or a program - they know all the touch points needed to craft a good system that that is going to work for our students.— Stuart Benkert, Director of Complete College Tracking and Assessment, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga

I am proud to say that our work is still going on almost four years later, and the focus on what is most important, the student, is still a large part of our planning for new programs and curriculum redesign.— Amy Baldwin, Instructor of English - Pulaski Technical College

Our FoE Philosophy Statement served as the basis for the development of our Quality Enhancement Plan for SACS and for the improvements we have made to new student orientation, advising, and retention.— Debbi Clear, Vice President of Instruction & Student Services - Virginia Highlands Community College

The FoE self study helped us to identify initiatives that were working well, pin-point gaps in our services, and set goals for continuing to improve our efforts in meeting the needs of our students.— Amanda Yale, Associate Provost for Enrollment Services - Slippery Rock University

Based on my experiences with the Institute, I can assert with assurance that FoE is a highly structured but very flexible process that has 'evolution' as its signature characteristic. An institution that participates in FoE exemplifies what Peter Senge calls "a learning institution."— Roberta Matthews, Former Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs - Brooklyn College

The John N. Gardner Institute has provided us an opportunity to really have candid conversations, as well as connect with other like-minded schools and senior staff. Student success is extremely important to our institution. With JNGI, you really get the idea of how we are all on the right path.— Sasha Heard, Student Affairs Manager, Allied American University

We've been in the implementation process for a short time and have achieved great momentum. In a time of 'lean' operating, FoE is the perfect tool to help institutions achieve efficient and effective operating goals while adding value to the student experience.— Shawn A. Anderson, Dean of Student Services - Minnesota State Community and Technical College